You First

In a daydreaming moment, I thought of a great response to someone who recommends a feed grade ingredient pet food…‘You first, you eat it’. I wonder how many would eat the feed?

Imagine being at a Big Box Pet Food Store, and a sales representative of Big Pet Food is giving you the pitch to their food. At that moment, you pull a can opener out of your pocket…open up a yummy can of Chopped Mystery Meat Stew…pull out a plastic spoon and serve up a big glop of stew to the sales rep and say… ‘You first, you eat it’.

Would they do it? Would they eat the Mystery Meat Stew?

What if you added…‘I’ll buy this food if you eat it first’. Wonder if that would be enough motivation to take a big bite of Chopped Mystery Meat Stew?

What if your good intentioned but nutritionally challenged veterinarian suggested you feed your pet the standard feed grade prescription pet food. I wonder what would happen if you opened the bag of kibble right then and there and said…‘You first, you eat it’. Would the veterinarian chow down?

Many smaller food grade pet food manufacturers taste test each of their ingredients – one has eaten nothing but their own pet food for a month (the owners) – and there has been one independent pet store owner that consumed nothing but pet food from her store for a month. I wonder if any of the executives from Big Pet Food would take this same challenge? Would they dine on their own Mystery Meat Stew for a month? Serve it to their children?

For us that will only give our pets food (not feed), this would be a reasonable and fair question to ask. ‘You first’ is more than fair. But unfortunately, for those that haven’t learned that most ‘pet food’ isn’t really food or for those that make a living from the most profitable recycling program in the world (pet feed) – they will think we’ve lost our minds if we suggest to them ‘you first’.

We know we haven’t lost our minds. It’s not insane to care as much as we do about our furry family’s food. The more we learned about the health perks of quality human food – the natural transition is to learn about the health perks of quality food for our pets.

If anyone gets the opportunity to suggest ‘You first’ – please share what happened with us. If you get a ‘No’ – please ask them why. We’d love to hear the responses.

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Comments 31

I am often asked what I feed the animals in my family. My response is easy: FOOD. Real food, stuff I could eat. What makes people think anything else, no matter how dressed up or well marketed it is, would be ok?

Unfortunately, I’ve been to many trade shows where the reps actually DO eat some of what they have on display. And, remember the pet store owner who ate only pet food for a number of days? She wanted to show that it was fine even for humans. I saw the list of brands she ate and I can tell you I definitely would not have done the same! Just because you or an animal can survive by eating something doesn’t mean it’s nutritious. It also doesn’t mean that continued eating of that same low grade diet won’t result in dire effects sooner or later.

think about some of the containers – beautiful pictures of carrots, peas, corn and hunks of red juicy beef or ‘broiled’ chicken parts — really? there is no reason that this would not appeal — it’s not the dogs or cats looking at the pictures and choosing that brand because of the fresh fish on the label- all marketing is aimed at us – the consumer.
We actually have a Vet who has a live interview on ‘TalkRadio’ once a week – and last week he actually said that he had recommended one of the currently under fire products as he felt it was a quality food — guess who I don’t use as a vet? Many ‘hawkers’ at fairs/trade shows do eat their products – and technically there is no reason they should not — doesn’t stand any more chance of a food borne illness from pet feed than from unwashed fruit/salad greens. never forget that the poison is in the dose —

Much of the packaged processed “foods” made for humans is not much better. People eat boxed breakfast cereal, bleached wheat flour, a mass of chemicalsnd oil called margarine, and a multitude of other boxed, bagged, and canned items sold as food. They strip out every natural, healthy ingredient and then add in synthetic vitamins processed in China.
No one thinks to question the quality of the actual food ingredients or the many long chemical names on the package. They feel like their bodies are healthy and the government is watching out for them just like they think is happening for their pet. Several decades of eating these highly processed foods full of chemicals of every sort does irreparable damage to the human body while it takes far less time for the damage to be done to the pet. I know people whose 4 & 5 year old pets already suffer from gum disease and tooth decay!
It makes my stomach turn to see the horrible scam that ALL of the food industry is perpetrating on the very apathetic American public.

Though HK is a respnsible company, their food is full of fillers that carnivore do not need & can not digest. Dogs & especially cats do not produce digestive enzymes to digest & assimilate these carbs.

I personally wonder the same thing about those who risk feeding raw meat to pets. A known source of pathogens that cooking kills and no scientifically proven benefit to feeding meat raw, yet people somehow jistify feeding something to their animals that they’d never eat themselves…

People frequently eat raw meat – sashimi, shell fish, beef. There is enough evidence out there to convince me that raw meat is appropriate for most dogs. It is the only thing, along with vegetables, that my dog can eat without having chronic serious digestive disturbances and skin infections, not helped by any medications which is what the vets prescribed for years. Finally, after 10 years of trying commercial, home-cooked, and prescriptions diets I tried raw meat and vegetables. Her symptoms are almost non-existent and she needs no medication. I’m sorry it took 10 years to figure out the problem. In three years of raw feeding she has never gotten sick from the food.

While it is possible to find discussion of some experiments done 30-40 years ago showing that cats could tolerate higher numbers of salmonella bacteria than humans before becoming clinically ill, most of the time this conjecture about cats being relatively immune to pathogens is supported by nothing more than descriptions of features of the cat’s digestive system that aim to protect them from pathogens in their food. This can sound very impressive to somebody that knows nothing about the physiology of mammals. “Cats have highly acidic hydrochloric acid in their stomachs, with a ph of 1, which kills off any bacteria they ingest.” Wow, hydrochloric acid, that sure sounds like it would kill any bacteria. Oh, yeah, except human gastric acid is hydrchloric acid: “The pH of gastric acid is 1.35 to 3.5 [1] in the human stomach lumen,…. In addition, many microorganisms have their growth inhibited by such an acidic environment, which is helpful to prevent infection.” [Wikipedia]. So humans (and all other mammals!) employ the exact same mechanisms. Now some pro raw sites claim that cats’ stomachs are maintained at a ph of 1 while human stomachs are at a much less acidic ph of 4-5. As far as we can determine, this is pure fiction, designed to mislead the ill informed or simply repeated by the misinformed. The human stomach ph typically varies from 1.5 to 3, with a nominal value of just over 2. What about cats? According to Nutrient Requirements of Dogs and Cats by National Research Council Ad Hoc Committee on Dog and Cat Nutrition: “The average ph of the cat stomach is 2.5 +/- 0.07 (Brosey et. al., 2000).” So cats and humans in fact maintain just about the same level of acidity in their stomachs. When a pro raw advocate tells you cats can ingest bacteria and bones with no problems due to their “highly acidic stomach acid,” they are feeding you a bunch of pure rubbish.

And where have cats been cooking their food through the centuries? Those birds and rodents they catch do not come even partiality cooked. The cat and dog digestive system digests freshly killed animal bodies not the garbage discarded by humans.
Only the greed of mankind came up with the idea of selling garbage to pet food manufacturers.

CT thank you for the information, I notice you have lots of data and facts and figures and your detractors have only opinions and a web site that doesn’t say what they say it says.

It is tough with some people whose viewpoints have been manipulated by bad, emotionally-laden information. There is a kind of syndrome where people begin to see conspiracies everywhere rather than the more realistic and logical idea that apathy, slow reactions, and lack of funds are at the root of many governmental agencies’ problems.

There is also a recent study that showed that people, holding false beliefs, who are presented with facts disproving those false beliefs, will not change their beliefs, but instead rationalize even harder to keep their false beliefs, and will blame the messenger.

So don’t feel bad about some of these comments. It is difficult sometimes to be a voice of reason when all around you are knee-jerk reacting and calling anyone who presents evidence contrary to their viewpoint a “shill.”

No, I do not work for Big Pharma, Big Pet Food, or Big Government. And I feed Honest Kitchen to my dogs (yes with all the “fillers”– dogs are not strict carnivores and can certainly digest non-meat foods.)

Pets fed Raw diets or partially cooked home prepared meals made from balanced formulas, using safe, species appropriate ingredients, need many fewer (if any) Vet visits over a lifetime, which translates into REDUCED profits.

TS,
You are Spot On! So much OVER/NEEDLESS vaccinating, compromising our companion’s health.

Titering is useful in determining whether your pet needs a vaccine. It will rate the antibodies in the system, thus reducing the need for repeated vaccinations. Over vaccinating is harmful to the immune system & health in general.

CT – dogs and human digestive systems and teeth are different. Dogs have a shorter digestive system and it’s very acidic so they can easily take care of the bacteria in raw meet. Their teeth are all pointy so they can tear apart meat and organs and grind down bones. Dogs are carnivores, humans are omnivores as we have some flat teeth and amylase in our saliva which allows us to digest starch, dogs do not have amylase in their saliva as such starch is not part of their diet.

Many years ago there was a rumor that some poor people would buy and eat cat food tuna. Everyone found that was disgusting. But we have now elevated our pets above the level that they should be fed food that is disgusting? If a human cannot eat their food then the pets should not be subjected to it. I suggested to NB after my pup died that they stuff their turkey with it. That is still my sugesstion to all pet food makers. If the thought makes you sick then STAND UP with some morals and ethics and stop the poisoning .

Remember during the commercials of the Johnny Carson Show you would see Ed McMahon joking around and appear to be eating a can of A**O? What a Hoot that was LOL!! I also know somebody who claims her daughter had a job at M*** taste testing P*****EE canned Dog Food. I said I don’t believe it. she insisted she was telling the truth!! Do they really hire people to do that?

The problem is, they will eat it. That is the easiest get out of a jail free card you could give them. I’ve had food reps eat their food in the store before- all the time in fact. They eat the treats, the kibble, the cans.

I would rather challenge them to the raw materials for their feed grade food- 4d meats (grilled of course), expired super market products, euthanized dogs and cats, etc- all served with a pinch of parsley. In the case of the rancid salmon, dill would be an acceptable alternative.

There is not one canned or bagged food that can be COMPLETE! Besides that, any nutrients cooked out of food are replaced with synthetic vitamins & minerals that the body can not assimilate. Then rancid, low grade oil is added, plus refined sugar & salt to make it palatable/enticeing.

Disgusting what the Pet Food Industry gets away with in false advertising.